Deep End

by Ali Hazelwood

“Come on, Luk. I know you think she’s hot. You said so.” Silence. “And I see the way you look at her.” A buzz of unease bursts in the back of my skull. “How do I look at her?” “You know how.”

“Maybe the elephant’s just…blindfolded?” He nods slowly. “And tied up.” “And doing as it’s told.” He looks like he might find that more appealing. “What a good elephant.”

“Come closer,” he orders. Lukas stopped a step behind me. I turn and frown up at him. “Why?” “Because I just asked you to, Scarlett.”

The subject line just reads What you need. The body: If you decide to go for it, I think it should be me.

Scarlett: Do you really want to be reminded of my computational superiority that often? Unknown: I do. I have a thing for women who are smarter than me.

“We’re going to need to work on this,” he says. “On w-what?” I scrape out. “Your tendency to let your vital organs shut down whenever something unexpected happens. Your neurons can only take so many anoxic events.”

I don’t get to finish that sentence. Because Lukas Blomqvist takes a long step, pushes me into the wall, and kisses me.

“The second thing is that I’ve read your list. And there is not a single thing you want that I don’t want more.”

Plus, with my luck, I’d swipe right on someone who stormed the Capitol and hates routine vaccinations. So…yeah.

“I love giving that to you, and I’m going to for as long as you’ll let me.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” My belly swoops at the endearment. His tone lives somewhere between sympathy and amusement. “If you don’t think that I’m very aware of your presence, always, you have no idea what’s going on.”

“You’re sounding more like my therapist, and less like a fun guy who threatens me with ball gags when I’m mouthy.” “We’ve established that neither of us is into those, and that I have better uses for your mouth.”

I get to take you apart and split you open—but if anything else, anyone else makes you feel sad, upset, cracked, I also get to be the one who puts you back together. Until you say stop. You get it?”

“I fuck you because you’re the most perfect thing I’ve ever felt, Scarlett.”

“Confidence is not about being able to do shit, Vandy. Confidence is showing up, and trying, and not giving up because deep in your heart you know who you are and what you’re capable of.”

“You’re fucking adorable, Scarlett.” He tilts my chin up. Another kiss, this time on the tip of my nose. “It makes me want to wreck you.”

“I don’t know why it’s such a turn-on that you’re so much smarter than me, but every time we have a project meeting, I have to go home and jerk off until my dick is raw.” “I’m not that smart—” “Shut the fuck up, you brilliant, beautiful genius.”

“I knew you wouldn’t mind. Being my precious toy. My girl. Mine to use. Mine to fuck. Mine to destroy and to fix.”

“Do you want me to fuck you while pretending that you’re not the person I feel closest to in the whole fucking world now, Scarlett? Or another day?”

“You know,” he says against my lips, “I wanted to be righteously angry at you. I told myself I wouldn’t be with you until you were ready to be honest.” I don’t ask about what. It would be supremely dishonest. “But I’m just so fucking happy to see you, Scarlett. I can’t be mad at you, when every time I think about you I am reminded that you exist.”

And I—I’ve been trying to tell you how I felt for months. And I know it’s hard to hear, I know this stuff doesn’t come easy to you, but it’s out there now. You don’t have to be terrified of it anymore. I love you. I’m in love with you. And you’re in love with me. We can say it.”